News & Current Events

[CellarDweller115]

Not only was Eartha Kitt an icon, she knew who her fan base was.

This is a quote from Eartha Kitt in a book I have called "The Book Of Gay Lists".  This list is "14 Gay Icons, and what They've Said About Gay Men."


"When I got into trouble in the '60s, gay men were the ones who kept my career alive.  They were looking for my records and female impersonators contantly imitated Eartha Kitt.  They kept my memory going until I returned, and I'm grateful for that."

[jack]

So do tactlessness and no manners at all...there's got to be a happy medium.

on this point we can tactfully agree to disagree, while the well mannered rick warren politely calls you a incestuous pedophile.

[Ennis Del Mark]

And I would politely tell him he is wrong.

And politely tell YOU...good night.

[michaelflanagansf]

So do tactlessness and no manners at all...there's got to be a happy medium.

Um...actually no - tactlessness and no manners are generally the way things change - the Russian Revolution, the French Revolution, the American Revolution, the conquest of the new world, Africa and Asia - the overthrow of the colonial regimes, the defeat of the Nazis, the Warsaw uprising - all very impolite.  Even the history of the British Empire, a place well renown for a sense of propriety, was not particularly tactful in the Boer War, the occupation of China, the shipping of convicts to Australia and the subjugation of India.  Not to be impolite, but history is pretty tactless.

ETA: And I didn't even get around to slavery, the Civil War and the Creek War, the trail of tears and Andrew Jackson, and the wars against the Seminole.  Messy, messy stuff. 

[michaelflanagansf]

And social movement - attempts to change things positively - are often as violent and impolite as all the rest - the abolitionist movement, the suffrage movement, parts of the civil rights movement, etc.

Never forget - Stonewall was a riot (as they say.... ).  And the people who asked politely for their rights were either ignored or jailed (read 'The Mayor of Castro Street' with us - the first part of it is a good history of this period).

[michaelflanagansf]

Study: Murders among black youths on rise
By LARA JAKES, Associated Press Writer Lara Jakes, Associated Press Writer   – 2 hrs 27 mins ago

WASHINGTON – The number of young black men and teenagers who either killed or were killed in shootings has risen at an alarming rate since 2000, a new study shows.

The study, to be released Monday by criminologists at Northeastern University in Boston, comes as FBI data is showing that murders have leveled off nationwide.

Not so for black teens, the youngest of whom saw dramatic increases in shooting deaths, the Northeastern report concluded.

Last year, for example, 426 black males between the ages of 14 and 17 were killed in gun crimes, the study shows. That marked a 40 percent increase from 2000.

Similarly, an estimated 964 in the same age group committed fatal shootings in 2007 — a 38 percent increase from seven years earlier. The number of offenders is estimated because not all crimes are reported, said Northeastern criminologist James Alan Fox, who co-authored the study.

"Although the overall rate of homicide in the United States remains relatively low, the landscape is quite different for countless Americans living, and some dying, in violence-infested neighborhoods," Fox said.

Seizing on President-elect Barack Obama's incoming administration as an opportunity for more funding, Fox added: "There is an urgency for reinvestment in children and families. In essence, we need a bailout for kids at risk."

continues:

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20081229/ap_on_re_us/black_homicides;_ylt=AjE6q4VLueekxmeu5PNLhGADW7oF

[brokebacktom]

The Holday Season was the worst in 40 years. THANK YOU Bush and company. More layoffs coming. But I was not surprised. I just came back from Fort Walton Beach, FL. and the Condo complex where my mother and step-father are staying at was down 60% from last year. They said most of the snow birds are coming after the holidays and staying shorter amount of time there. WE are in scary times with the Crisis all over the world.

http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20601087&sid=ajAqMbszJmNY&refer=home

[jack]

hope you had a pleasant stay... your absence was definitely noticed.

[brokebacktom]

The GOP attack Bush Calling him a Socialist. Do they know the meaning of that word or not?

In what would amount to a slap in the face to a sitting Republican president and the party's Senate and House leaders, national GOP officials, including the vice chairman of the Republican National Committee, are sponsoring a resolution opposing the resort to "socialist" means to save capitalism.

http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2008/dec/30/rnc-pushes-unprecedented-criticism-of-bailouts/

[fritzkep]

Didn't take long for the GOP to officially turn on him, did they? I had expected they'd wait to trash him until after he was out of office. They will of course suddenly discover that all along he had not been a conservative. Which is actually true, in the sense of a classic fiscal conservative, but one could not discern that attitude about his political alignment until relatively recently.

[michaelflanagansf]

The GOP attack Bush Calling him a Socialist. Do they know the meaning of that word or not?

I think they get it confused with 'socialite.'

[brokebacktom]

More Muslims were kick out of another plane. I know somewhat how they feel. I went to Orlando in 2005, and I was reading the Quaran on the flight. You should see the looks I got. I thought I was going to be escorted off the plane. I was kind of scared too.
I'm not even a Muslim. I was just reading a book. 



http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2009/01/02/nine-muslim-passengers-ki_n_154750.html

[michaelflanagansf]

I'm not even a Muslim. I was just reading a book. 

You should learn to ululate.  Scarves help in this situation as well, I've found.

[michaelflanagansf]

Haunted Wal-Mart, anyone?

Historians battle Wal-Mart over key Civil War site
12:06 PST Locust Grove, Va.

Wal-Mart wants to build a Supercenter within a cannonshot of where Robert E. Lee and Ulysses S. Grant first fought, a proposal that has preservationists rallying to protect the key Civil War site.

A who's who of historians including filmmaker Ken Burns and Pulitzer Prize winner David McCullough sent a letter last month to H. Lee Scott, president and CEO of Wal-Mart Stores Inc., urging the company to build somewhere farther from the Wilderness Battlefield.

"The Wilderness is an indelible part of our history, its very ground hallowed by the American blood spilled there, and it cannot be moved," said the letter from 253 scholars and others.

Wal-Mart and its supporters point out that the 138,000-square-foot store would be right behind a bank and a small strip mall, a full mile from entrance to the site of the 1864 clash that left thousands dead and hastened the war's end.

Local leaders also want the $500,000 in tax revenue they estimate the big box store will generate for rural Orange County, a gradually growing area about 60 miles southwest of Washington.

"In these economic times, the fact that Wal-Mart wants to come into the county is an economic plus," said R. Mark Johnson, a tire shop owner and chairman of the county's board of supervisors. "This is hardly pristine wilderness we're talking about."

Grant's Union troops were headed to Richmond on May 4, 1864, when they confronted Lee's Confederate Army of Northern Virginia. The Battle of the Wilderness involved more than 100,000 Union troops and 61,000 Confederates. The fighting, according to National Park Service estimates, left more than 4,000 dead and 20,000 wounded.

Some 2,700 acres of the Wilderness Battlefield are protected as part of the Fredericksburg and Spotsylvania National Military Park.

Preservationists regularly square off against developers in Virginia, where much of the Civil War was fought.

This dispute, however, has stirred an outcry similar to the one in 1994 over The Walt Disney Co.'s plans to build a $650 million theme park within miles of the Manassas Battlefield. The entertainment giant bowed to public pressure and abandoned the project.

Bentonville, Ark.-based Wal-Mart, which opened nearly 200 stores in the U.S. in 2007, said it studied a lengthy list of sites in Orange County before settling on the spot near the battlefield and its gentle hills dissected by neat footpaths.

continues:

http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/n/a/2009/01/02/national/a113007S18.DTL

[fritzkep]

Grrrr....  

Wal-Mart also tried to build one near the farm where Washington grew up, too. Fortunately they were defeated. What's with these people anyway?